Are Christians Being Persecuted in the UK?

And is the loss of support for Kate Forbes an example of that?

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

We have been hearing for some time that Christians are persecuted in the UK. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, asserted this to be the case back in 2012 when the rise of Victimhood Culture was still in its infancy. This claim is not well supported by evidence and, given the facts that we still have a state religion, 26 bishops are given places in government as “Lords Spiritual” and schools are legally obliged to provide 15 minutes of collective worship of a broadly Christian character, it does appear to many to be somewhat ridiculous. The satirical magazine, The Mash, provides a test for Christians to check whether or not they are being persecuted.

Today, Mary Harrington, made this argument for Unherd entitled “The death of Christian privilege: Mankind killed God and ushered in an age of persecution” and she used the loss of support for Kate Forbes as SNP candidate as an example of this. Harrington is somebody who is always worth reading whether or not you agree with her. On this occasion, I do not.

Many Christians would not agree with her either, especially when she repeatedly cites Christ’s words allegedly spoken on the Cross when he died, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” and interprets this as his “crying out at the last moment of agony about having been forsaken by the God in whom he trusted.” These words have long presented a problem to the Christian narrative in which Christ knew he was going to die and, in fact, willingly sacrificed himself. Other gospels give the last words of Christ as commending his spirit into God and asking God to forgive his torturers for they knew not what they did. This is also somewhat confusing, however, as Christ would not really need to ask God to do this because he A) was God and B) already knew he was enduring such suffering to enable God (who is also himself) to forgive humanity. That was the point.

Many sophisticated theologians have written hundreds of thousands of words over nearly 2000 years to explain this seeming conundrum. They would regard a literal interpretation of them as Christ believing God (who is presumably a different being) to have forsaken him by allowing him to die as woefully simplistic & ignorant about the true meaning of God’s sacrifice and Christ’s suffering. Nevertheless, the fact that it is genuinely difficult for people today to intuitively understand how all this works and need lengthy and complicated explanations of why God sacrificed himself to himself in order to enable himself to forgive humanity presents a problem to Harrington’s argument.

Harrington raises a concern that is shared by many when she says,

Last weekend, though, nearly all of the thin congregation was over 60. What will happen to that unbroken fabric of cultural continuity when people stop showing up? Will my daughter… see her native moral grammar and way of looking at the world fade and disappear?

The position that the culture of the UK is, at root, Christian, is one we are probably all familiar with and the argument is presented most strongly and in great detail by Tom Holland in Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. This cannot be dismissed. It would be ludicrous to deny that hundreds of years of Christianity had had a significant influence on British culture, language and way of thinking. I am not a Christian and yet I immediately understand what someone means when they say “That’s my cross to bear” (I must just accept this patiently) or “Enjoy your 30 pieces of silver” (you have committed a grievous betrayal for the sake of money).

Nevertheless, the idea that Christianity provides Britons with their “native moral grammar and way of looking at the world” fails to take into account all the other philosophical, political, cultural and artistic influences that have existed in the past & exist now. It also fails to recognise that Christianity itself changes as culture does & exerts a pressure on the faith to keep up or lose relevance. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of the crucifixion narrative which is the very lynch pin of Christianity. The “moral grammar and way of looking at the world” that underlies this story simply doesn’t make sense to contemporary Britons as it would have to ancient Jews and other ancient peoples. We just don’t do human sacrifice anymore.

It is not that contemporary British society does not understand sacrifice. The headline “Man Loses his Own Life in Saving Child from Drowning” would be likely to have us heading into the story prepared to feel much moved by his heroism and sacrifice. The headline “Man Tortures his Own Child to Death to Prevent Himself from Doing it to Everybody Else” is more likely to have us expecting to see that he has now been confined to a secure psychiatric hospital if we could even bear to look at the story at all.

The paragraph above is not intended to be a cheap shot at the Christian faith or at Christian believers or to suggest that Christianity is either evil or insane. (I have made such facile and antagonistic jabs in the past and do not believe that this was either fair or helpful behaviour on my part). Rather it is to show that our moral grammar and way of looking at the world have already radically changed from the times in which the gospels were written. People of that time would be much less likely to need an explanation of how God sacrificing his own, perfectly good, son to an agonising death enables the forgiveness (by God) of everybody’s else’s sin and their ultimate salvation. This was a time and place in which an understanding of human sacrifice was still intuitively understood within many cultures although the rationale for this is not fully understood by humans today and may vary.

Child sacrifice is a specific subset of the wider category of human sacrifice, which is a form of slaying that attempts to bring about a shift in the suprahuman realm. Child sacrifice is a subset because it points to the young age of victims or to the parent-child relationship. The practice is closely intertwined with the religious history of the ancient Near East and wider Mediterranean world. It is noticeable in artwork, textual traditions, and a variety of archaeological contexts. Because the practice goes back into prehistory, it is not always clear why certain child sacrifices were performed, such as sacrifices accomplished at the founding of buildings. Through artistic and textual representations, it is possible to gain a better understanding of the meanings attached to sacrificial rites. Nevertheless, there are still ambiguities that exist, and scholars must dig into ancient contexts to discovery how child sacrifices were perceived. This entails careful linguistic analysis, including of biblical texts. Child sacrifice is still a topic of interest to those adhering to the Abrahamic faith traditions that developed out of this area of the world. In this respect, the sacrifice, or almost sacrifice, of a firstborn son would be of greatest significance. Yet the early Israelite story about Abraham’s mountain-top binding of his son to the altar (called the Akedah in Judaism) has neither been viewed identically in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam nor meant the same thing to every generation. It could be said that child sacrifice more generally has experienced shifts within faith traditions, and practices accepted in one time period may not have been agreeable later. (Emphasis mine)

God sacrificing his only son for the sake of humanity would be understood in these times as an act of great love. It is much harder for people today to comprehend how such a torturous death of an innocent makes anything better and why God could not have forgiven humanity without doing this. This “moral grammar and way of looking at the world” is long gone and ‘the unbroken fabric of cultural continuity’ that Harrington is concerned for has, in fact, broken at least in relation to the human sacrifice aspect of Christianity (and thank goodness for that). So, faiths change as cultures change and fighting this is rather futile although we can all take part in arguing for what constitutes positive change and what should not be changed. (Also, the best way to increase Christianity in the UK is to increase immigration from Africa. “Black Churches” are the ones still growing and their congregations are much younger).

This is, of course, separate to the argument about whether or not Christians are being persecuted. Harrington says,

Christians are permitted to exist in public life to the extent that they’re willing to forswear doctrine, or at the very least to keep quiet about their beliefs. A recent case in point is SNP politician Kate Forbes, whose candidacy as Scotland’s First Minister was effectively halted by views on abortion, marriage and gender ideology that remain standard Christian teaching across many denominations, but are now widely viewed as irrationally “faith-based”, troubling, outdated and rendering those who profess them unfit for public office.

But this argument also misses a rather important feature which is that Kate Forbes is a politician seeking to represent the interests of a country. As Forbes herself told journalists, she would have voted against legalising gay marriage “as a matter of conscience.” If she were to do so in a referendum as a private individual with one vote equal to everybody else’s, this would be a matter of conscience. If she wishes to be fit for the public office of First Minister, she will be expected to look not to her own conscience for the policies she votes for and enacts but to the will of the Scottish people she represents. Over 2/3rds of the Scottish people support same sex marriage and so does the church.

Ms Forbes is not being persecuted if SNP members cease supporting her as a candidate for First Minister because of the political stances she takes and on own statement on what she would vote for if they did. Firstly, they are also allowed to have their own consciences and to support or not support candidates based on them. Secondly, if the way the First Minister of Scotland would vote on certain issues does not represent the Scottish people, her party is not likely to remain in power. SNP members will want the SNP to be in power.

There is a huge category error going on here and it is particularly clear in the argument by Tom Harris for the Telegraph in which he argues that the SNP is being illiberal by not supporting Forbes. He says, quite rightly, “To enjoy and tolerate people whose views differ to yours without feeling the need to argue them into submission: that is true liberalism” and goes on:

Meanwhile, the rest of the population, the vast majority, just get on with their lives and get on with their family members, friends and work colleagues who might happen to hold different opinions to them but who are nevertheless good company over the dinner table or in the work canteen.

Well, yes. But Ms Forbes is not applying to be good company over the dinner table or in the work canteen. She is applying to run the country. Surely, we can see the difference here? My most respected person in the world, my father, was a dyed-in-the-wool Tory and I very much got on with him and enjoyed his company. I also cared for him in the months that he was dying of cancer. Had he put himself forward as a Tory politician with the economic and social views he held, I would not have voted for him. Nor would he have voted for me if I had stood as a Labour candidate. Neither of us would be being illiberal by having our minds and supporting different candidates who held the values we did. Harris’ argument here is weak and entirely missing missing the point of liberalism.

This is not to say that there is never any illiberalism against Christians or that this illiberalism can never apply to a political candidate. It certainly can. I wrote about this in my piece, “The Illiberal Attack on Tim Farron.” Farron was also a Christian and despite his demonstrable commitment to upholding the liberal policies of his party on LGBT rights, reproductive freedom and getting compulsory Christian worship out of schools and not allowing his own beliefs as a Christian to prevent him from representing the public whom he served, he was badgered mercilessly. As I wrote at the time:

Tim Farron’s personal beliefs are Christian, but public policies are liberal. This should be what matters to voters, but the focus on his personal beliefs has been intense. The language of the reports are alarming. They frequently say Farron ‘refused to say’ that he didn’t think gay sex was a sin or ‘refused to deny’ believing that it was. This is the language of ideological purity and presents a demand for conformity of thought and speech. Farron’s commitment to upholding the liberal values of the party he represents, evidence that he has done so, and intends to continue doing so isn’t enough. He must also believe all the right things, heart and soul, on a personal level and say so…

Is this liberal? If we understand liberalism to have at its core the two essential values of freedom and equality? Are Farron’s critics being liberal when they demand he not only vigorously support LGBT rights but also declare them compatible with his Christian faith?  Would Farron be being liberal if he only supported equal rights and freedoms because they accorded with what he himself believed to be morally good? Or is it more liberal to recognise different values to exist and support rights for everyone, whether or not they share the values of your own belief system?

I maintain that this treatment of Tim Farron was indeed illiberal and if Kate Forbes is also committed to her responsibility to represent the Scottish people in her job and apply her conscience to her own life, it would be illiberal and erroneous to consider her unfit for the job. It is just not at all clear that she is prepared to make that divide between her job and her personal life. Farron did vote in favour of same sex marriage thus upholding his party’s values while Forbes has said she would not have voted to legalise same sex marriage because of her personal conscience despite the views of the people she wants to represent. If this has been misrepresented or will change in the context of her being elected, she should state clearly her commitment to represent her party members rather than herself and then demonstrate that she will do that. If she chooses not to do this, she must accept that party members will not consider her fit for the job. This is not persecution. It is democracy.